Lotty See, Lotty Do
by IoIngridWeaver
Summary: And she does not wake up when everyone in the waiting room is told her kidneys have shut down and at five foot two Lotty barely weighs eight-five pounds. Lotty Vaughn is much stronger than people realize and give her credit for. And she rises to the occasion and puts herself on the line to help those she considers friends. But soemtimes Phil Coulson and co forget she is human too.


Lotty Vaughn sometimes hates the world and everything and everyone in it. She is by no means evil or a super villain. No she is just grumpy and tired and moody and restless and really just wants to cry at this moment in time. And today is one of those days.

It has been almost fifteen weeks since Coulson supposedly "died" and twelve since she was informed that was not so; Lotty is slowly but surely drowning in the depression and the secrets she is keeping. The secret that in her own apartment Phil is lying in a coma he has yet to awaken from and the fact that she has been lying to everyone around her for almost four months. And on top of that she was the handler for the Avengers and by extension Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis, Erik, and Pepper Potts. And slowly but surely wrangling rage monsters, scientists, gods, and superheroes has taken its toll on her. And Lotty likes to think that she is stronger than people give her credit for. But still she knows she is only human.

And that is why she is currently trying to ignore the urge she feels as she sits in the meeting with Fury and Avengers and some other high ranking SHIELD personal. She is trying her best to ignore the donuts that she ate earlier and the salad that Pepper forced her to eat during the long meeting as well as the small piece of cake that Bruce handed her and she was about to decline but he gave her a look and Lotty found she was unable to say no.

She resists because she does not want to do it here. She does not want to give her father the satisfaction of knowing that she is weak and that he was right and she was wrong. She does not want to give in but she can feel her stomach clenching and she feels sick and knows because this is the most food she has eaten in almost three weeks and that it is the longest she has kept anything down for almost a month.

She has lost almost ten pounds in the past two and a half weeks. She knows she is pale but she covers it up as simply being tired and she refuses to give them any leverage that can be used against her. She refuses to be seen as weak and incompetent at the job she was never meant to have but was forced to have anyways.

And as the meeting drags on Lotty barely manages to keep it all down before she races out of the room when it ends and winds up with her head in a toilet bowl puking her guts out. It is only after the episode ends she leans against the stall door and tries to breathe the best she can.

It is the day after she begins to eat only an apple a day and it is then she begins to run. After years of never having time she makes time as she runs around the Park until she nearly falls over. She keeps running because it is something she can control. She runs until she fits into more professional looking clothes and she runs until she can give Pepper a run for her money is skinniest person in SHIELD.

And when Phil opens his eyes after a six months coma the first sight he sees shocks him to his core. Lotty is thin, far too small, gaunt, and paler than snow. But when she awakens and screams and hugs him he tries to say it was his imagination. But then comes the storm.

When the Avengers find out about her part in the deception every single one of them begins to shun Lotty and slowly but Phil is so drowned in the sea of emotion and friendship he has no time for the woman who cared for him and saved him and everything else.

Another month passes before the tempers and bruised egos begin to cool. It is throughout this month Lotty has passed her duties on to someone else in order to try and cool then tension and took some much needed vacation time.

And as everyone around him prepares for her return Phil decides he will talk to Lotty and try to understand what is happening. But when she returns he begins to see his mistake. She is much too pale for someone who just spent three weeks in Barcelona. She is much to thin for someone who said she was pigging out on quesadillas and other food native to the sunny country. And she looks like she is wasting away to nothing. Her cheek bones stick out and her collar bones are all he sees in her business suit that is swallowing her whole.

But it is what happens next that kills him. She smiles and says hello and proceeds into work. And that is all. She ignores them all and goes out of her way to avoid them. When Stark demands answers Fury simply replies that Lotty asked to be transferred out and have nothing to do with the Avengers Initiative or anything pertaining to it.

And something in the team breaks as everyone tries to approach her but all are rebuffed. And even when Jane tries to talk to her Lotty lets out her evil eyes and scares the woman away. She screams when Pepper tries to talk to her and in one instance she throws Stark against a wall and punches his windpipe to get him to shut up. She is slowly but surely isolating herself off from them and cutting up and destroying the bonds and friendships she has formed. And he does not know why.

This pattern is established after another eight weeks until the unthinkable happens and Stark Tower is attacked by an organization called TEN RINGS and it ends in a standoff with Jane being held captive with a knife to her throat with the Avengers helpless to do a thing.

But suddenly the man is not talking anymore and everyone looks and sees a piece of a metal pipe sticking through his chest. As he begins to gurgle blood Jane pries his arm away and runs into Thor's open arms. Everyone watches as he falls and everyone see Lotty behind him, with bloody hands and a hard expression on her face.

Lotty is small and grumpy and sometimes a little too talkative. But she is stronger than people give her credit for and will always do what is needed so that the greater good will be achieved. It is something he has always known about her. But he has also always known that despite her formidable personality and temper she is human and frail like the rest of them.

This is reinforced when she wobbles, hand clutching her side, and falls to the floor. She does not awaken at all. She does not awaken when they take her up to the medical floors or when she is given a shot of adrenalin to kick start her heart. And she does not wake up when everyone in the waiting room is told her kidneys have shut down and at five foot two Lotty barely weighs eight-five pounds. She does not wake up when Phil is told that Lotty is showing signs of both bulimia and anorexia and depression.

She still does not awaken when they take turns sitting beside her and reading her favorite novels. She does not wake up when they all apologize and beg for forgiveness. And she does not wake up for eight days.

However she does wake up and begins screaming at Stark for insufficient security systems and for being a booze hound when she sees the bottle of tequila by her bed, even if it is her favorite. And as she lets loose on all of them for being stupid and complacent and idiots Phil pretends not to see the tears in her eyes or the trembles in her hands when she signs forms to attend rehab. Phil is almost in awe at her strngth and forgiveness and grit. She lasted so long alone and punished herself for her perceived sins. She pushed them away when she thought it would help them forgive him. And now she takes them back with open arms. It amazes him. Lotty Vaughn in strong; stronger than he could ever be.


End file.
